Advantages of Healthcare Text Messaging Emphasized by New Analysis

Additional evidence has appeared presenting the advantages of healthcare written messaging. A recently published study in the Journal of the American Heart Association obviously indicated that an automatic mHealth interference using Smartphone and text messages tracing applications might prove to be a good approach for rising patients’ physical activity stages.

The advantages of rising activity stages, particularly for patients with cardiovascular disease, can’t be undervalued. Nevertheless, below 50% of grownups can’t reach the suggested daily exercise goals, despite several plans to get the nation more energetic. Actually, activity stages haven’t increased significantly since they were rated as part of the National Health and Nutrition Examination Surveys carried out between 1988 and 1994.

As per the American Heart Association, there’s a dire requirement for research into effective, new tactics that can be used to encourage increasing daily activity stages. For this purpose, Seth S. Martin, MD, MHS et al, carried out an analysis at a walkway center in Baltimore to find out whether the use of text message reminders and activity trackers might be used to improve fitness and exercise levels of cardiology patients.

The analysis indicated that with informative and motivational text message prompts, on average patients paced extra 2,500 paces every day as compared to people who didn’t receive text mails. 2,500 steps match to a quarter of the suggested number of steps adults must be making every day.

The five-week study set up standard activity levels throughout week 1, after which cardiology patients partaking in the analysis were divided into 2 separate groups. For the next 2 weeks, half of the members were provided with access to their activity data through Smartphones. The other half was barred from accessing exercise data. The last 2 weeks of the study concentrated on the group that was competent to see activity data. That grouping was divided in 2 and one-half of the members were sent text message prompts 3 times in a day providing them upgrades on their activity stages, together with motivational mails to try to get them to meet their everyday 10,000-step objective.

44% of people within the groups that didn’t have access to their everyday activity data, or had restricted access, coped to meet or surpass their 10,000-step everyday target. 81% of people within the group that got motivational text messages as well as updates on their progress all through the day done well in meeting their daily 10,000-step objective.

Healthcare Text Messaging: Beyond an Appointment Reminder Service

A lot of healthcare providers have implemented text messages for delivering appointment reminders to patients, however far more benefits can be gained from communicating with patents through SMS texts. The most recent study adds to the increasing body of evidence displaying the effectiveness of text messages at increasing patient outcomes. Safe healthcare text messaging systems aren’t required, provided no PHI is communicated. Nevertheless, the advantages of also applying secure text message platform are substantial.